Information Technology Services

“Accelerating Speed to Strategic Value Utilizing Quarterly Governance”

Preventing & Mitigating Cyber Attacks

South Carolina Association of Counties

August 6, 2018

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Mecklenburg County Government

• Largest population in North Carolina – over one million residents

• Includes City of Charlotte and 6 other towns

• Major county services Health & Human Services Criminal Justice Services Land, Use and Environmental Services Parks & Recreation Tax Assessment & Collection

• $1.7 Billion Operating Budget

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Erica Elleby

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• Began local government career at Mecklenburg County, NC in 2001.

• Director of Business Operations and IT Controller for Mecklenburg County’s Information Technology Services

• Responsible for enterprise technology spend, IT vendor

management and asset management • Local Government Experience

• Strategic Planning & Performance Management • Application Management & Support • IT Strategy & Planning • Vendor Management • Budgeting

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Technology Pressures Facing Government

•External influences will impact our future direction as much as (or more) than maintaining existing technology environments

•These forces will drive future technology policy, planning, investments and RISK Management Strategies

Mobile

Cloud

Others

Green IT

Current Gov IT

Operations

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Technology Challenges Facing Government • Budget constraints

• Multiple lines of business

• Insufficient staffing / skill-gap

• Lack of IT governance

• Competing project priorities

• Outdated infrastructure

• Aging software systems

• Accountability to residents

• Slow changes due to bureaucracy

• Lack of reporting and transparency capabilities

• Security and Data Breaches

External Forces: Rapidly changing RISK landscape

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Number of Organizations in the U.S. That Suffered a Data Breach

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Cybercrime: Third Largest Market Cap (2016 data)

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Some 9.7 billion data records have been lost or stolen since 2013.

https://breachlevelindex.com/

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Ransomware: More Devastating & Widespread

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Ransomware: More Devastating & Widespread

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Annabelle Ransomware includes everything but the kitchen sink when it comes to screwing up a computer. This includes terminating numerous security programs, disabling Windows Defender, turning off the firewall, encrypting your files, trying to spread through USB drives, making it so you can't run a variety of programs, and then to sweeten the pot, it overwrites the master boot record of the infected

computer with a silly boot loader

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SamSam Netting $325K in 4 Weeks

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SamSam Ransomware has infecting : • City of Atlanta • Davidson County in North Carolina • US Hospital (Hancock Health) • The Colorado Department of Transportation

(CDOT) not once but twice in February

5 Things to Know about SamSam Ransomware

1.SamSam has been on a tear in 2018 2.SamSam is primarily targeting healthcare

and government organizations 3.SamSam is not spread via spam emails 4.The attackers behind SamSam are well-

versed in evading antivirus, and may infect victims multiple times

5.SamSam can be stopped

Today's advanced attacks routinely bypass antivirus. To stop them,

organizations need to invest in smarter, stronger endpoint security that has the ability to block not just executables, but

malicious activity in real-time.

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Cybercrime

Cybercrime industry is BIG business looking for new victims

It can operate incognito and hide behind foreign boundaries

Well financed and getting more sophisticated and tenacious in its approach

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Cybercrime has three main purposes Extortion, Theft, and Exploitation

All three are critical threats to the public sector • Extortion: Freeze the ability to provide public services

(safety, health & welfare, commerce) • Theft: Cash and information • Exploitation: Override protections or alter political outcomes

Public Consequences • Loss of services • Loss of life • Loss of trust • Loss of taxpayer $

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Cybercrime

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Why is Public Sector a Target?

Provide valuable, time critical services Have valuable information that can be sold multiple times

(personal / HIPAA / PCI)

Have ability to pay (big budgets / pass through lots of $)

Large workforce trained to “be helpful” – Phishing targets

Likely to have under invested in cyber protection and recovery systems

Likely allowing employees to practice unsafe cyber practices

Weak(er) crisis management plans & continuity of operations plans

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Costs of Data Breach

•Life or Death impacts to individuals

•Reputation damage / negative publicity

•Lost / compromised data

•Lost productivity

•Potential further affects on clients (e.g. identify theft)

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Phases of a Cyber Attack

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• Bad Bots & Tools

• Social Engineering Campaigns

• Wi-Fi Scanning

• Public Records

• Social networks

• Dumpster Diving

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Mecklenburg County

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• Ransomware attack—December 5, 2017

• Mecklenburg County network credentials were compromised by cyber criminal(s) using a social engineering Phishing attack

• The criminal(s) utilized harvested user sign-on credentials to gain un-authorized access to Mecklenburg County systems

• The criminal(s) then planted Ransomware to ‘Freeze’ select systems and then demanded payment to ‘Unfreeze’

• 48 Servers encrypted—Over 200 systems impacted

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Mecklenburg County’s Ransomware Attack

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Cyber Incident Response Plan

Phase 1: Preparation

Phase 2: Detection

Phase 3: Analysis & Validation

Phase 4: Containment, Handling & Eradication

Phase 5: Recovery

Phase 1: Preparation

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Cyber Incident Response Plan Information Technology Business Owners

Phase 1: Preparation

Facilitate, Make Plans & Be Ready

Be Ready to implement response & communications plan —timing is everything

Phase 2: Detection Identify & Respond From first alert—follow the plan and communicate

Phase 3: Analysis & Validation

Investigative Process for Digital Forensics

Provide information to support Analysis—help prioritize. Identify manual procedures and controls for business continuity.

Phase 4: Containment, Handling & Eradication

Utilizing a Controlled, Methodical, Secure Process

Clean up and restoring services, procedures to support data integrity and internal controls and customer service

Phase 5: Recovery ‘New Normal’ Standard Operating Practices

‘New Normal’ Standard Operating Practices, Training, Build Resilience

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What preparation did we have?

When did we know this was happening?

What did we do to contain the damage?

Phase 2: Detection

Shared publicly on Dec. 12th 2017

Preparation & Detection Phase 1: Preparation

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Backups: Server team stood up a new database environment & we restored database backups for various systems which ran overnight

Gained additional insights from various sources regarding potential risks & benefits of paying ransom. Engaged Experts (Microsoft, FBI, Fortalice, TrendMicro, Others)

Based on risk / benefit analysis and input from numerous discussions with County Executive Leadership, decision was made and communicated that:

Mecklenburg County would not pay

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/us/mecklenburg-county-hackers.html

Phase 2: Detection

Phase 3: Analysis & Validation

Shared publicly on Dec. 12th 2017

Detection and Analysis

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• Reset all system accounts and passwords

• Tightened ‘In-bound’ and ‘Outbound’ Firewall rules

• Executed Restoration Procedures

• All: communication https://www.mecknc.gov/news/Pages/Countywide-system-outage.aspx

Phase 4: Containment, Handling & Eradication

Shared publicly on Dec. 12th 2017

Containment, Handling, and Restoration

Utilizing a Controlled, Methodical, Secure Process • Isolation of “Clean” systems vs. “Not Clean” (which remained quarantined)

• Restored “Clean” data into “Clean” environments

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• Implemented extended password length

• Significantly restrict international emails

• Policy & Perimeter Security changes: • External email alerting • Non-County web-based email elimination • Eliminate email auto-forwarding

Phase 5: Recovery

Identified “New Normal” Security Practices

Microsoft Cloud Microsoft Cloud Vendor Hosted

Applications

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Phase 5: Recovery

CHANGE: “New Normal” Security Practices

Executive Alignment & Sponsorship On-going Communication & Target Dates Training & Support

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NETWORK SECURITY

APPLICATION SECURITY

DATA SECURITY

PERIMETER SECURITY

MISSION CRITICAL ASSETS

ENDPOINT SECURITY

EndpointFirewall

Data CenterFirewall

Security QA

Endpoint Antivirus/IDP

Patch Management

AUP Enforcement

Local Disk Encryption

Data Loss Protection/Prevention

Removable Media/Device

Control

Enterprise Remote Access

Multifactor Authentication

Data LossPrevention/Protection

Enterprise Access Edge & WLAN Security

Network Access Control

Web Content & Application

Filtering VoIP Security

Code Review

Web Application

Firewall Multifactor Authentication

ID/Access Management

Data Classification

Rights ManagementData Lifecycle

Data Encryption

IT Security Governance

Cyber Threat Intelligence

Asset Management

Vulnerability Assessment

Security Awareness

Training

Risk Management

Security Architecture &

Design SIEM

Security Policies &

Compliance

Threat Modeling

OWASPAnalysis/Review

Backup/Integrity

Security Incident

Reporting, Detection &

Response

Security Dashboards/

KPIs

Digital Forensics

Escalation Management

SOC/NOC Monitoring

Asset Management

Continuous Monitoring/Situational Awareness

Security Operations

Training

SSLInspection

Secure Configurations

(STIG)

TDM

SDN/Automation

EdgeFirewall/IDP/IDS

SSL Inspection

Secure DMZs/Network

Segmentation

O365 Email Security – AV/

MalwareReal-time

Cloud Threat

Services

Honeypot

Data Loss Protection/Prevention

O365 SharePoint

DLP

O365 Exchange

DLP

Web Content & Application

FilteringNetwork

Segmentation

Penetration Testing

Security Operations

Staffing

Vulnerability Reporting and Remediation

O365 Exchange

DLP

IT Security utilizes a layered model to address security concerns across the enterprise. Due to the highly dynamic nature of information security, specific items on this diagram are frequently updated; however, security initiatives should align with one or more of these layers as an area of focus.

Goal: Reduce an Attacker’s Chance of Success While Increasing an Attacker’s Risk of Detection

IT Services Team

Implement A Layered Security Approach

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Mecklenburg County Hack Attack What Went Well Treated as a County crisis – Not an IT issue Daily command center engaged throughout

Communication strategy came from the Top – early and timely frequency (email & telephony was essential)

Had strong back-ups and ability to restore

Had practiced IT and Department COOP’s (table top exercises)

Had strong relationship with Forensic IT companies (on the job within hours)

Had Cyber Insurance

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Mecklenburg County Hack Attack Lessons Learned? If you have valuable data (personal, HIPPA, PCI), provide critical

infrastructure services, or have the ability to pay, you are a cybersecurity target – You are probably being watched and tested as we speak.

Cyber criminals are highly sophisticated and persistent – in our case, they spent considerable time looking for a way in – moved quickly once in.

Your employees will fall for phishing (no matter how much training you do).

Your employees are unaware of file sharing and other social media risks – you may be surprised at how much unauthorized file sharing is going on: personal storage, Dropbox, etc.

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Mecklenburg County Hack Attack

Lessons Learned If (when) you are hacked, be aware that your IT access will be

blocked (inbound and outbound) by 3rd parties. You will need to prove to each provider that it is safe to restore access (can take weeks)

• Banks • State, Federal, Local systems (even, in our case, cities and

towns within our County)

You will be inundated with assistance and advice (these were unanticipated management communication challenges)

Be prepared for counter attacks

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Mecklenburg County Hack Attack

Preparation for Next Time Quickly adopt “New Normal” security standards

• Revise employee and IT policies • IT security & infrastructure strategy and investments • External vulnerability reviews and testing of IT controls

Update COOP plan to include Cybersecurity lessons learned • Prioritization of system restores • Increased capacity for system restoration (speed) • Scheduling exercise to test and improve

Shared perspective with Risk Management team, Cyber Insurance provider and others

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Vendor Management

Third-party vendor relationships can create additional risks to your organization. Best practices to manage third-party vendors:

• Establish a tone at the top with management-level oversight

• Ensure appropriate investment and staffing

• Conduct third-party screening, onboarding, and due diligence during RFP process

• Align vendor IT security plan with organization

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Disaster Recovery & COOP Plans

• Structured and documented approach for responding to unplanned incidents

• Step-by-step plan that minimizes the effects of an incident or disaster

• Typically, disaster recovery planning involves analysis of business processes and continuity needs

• Disaster Recovery Plan checklist includes: Definition of what constitutes a ‘disaster’ Recovery Time Objective (RTO) Recovery Point Objective (RPO) Identify most serious threats & vulnerabilities Disaster recovery strategies Cybersecurity integrated into DR & COOP plan Response team roles and responsibilities

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Have a candid conversation about enterprise risk of Cybercrime with all functions at the table Prioritize critical functions (external and internal) Less about IT tools, more about operations and protecting the

public Update continuity of operations plans How will you operate under no or restricted IT functionality? How will you record activity? Financial controls?

Get a baseline assessment of your critical IT infrastructure Move your workforce to a “new normal” Educate your workforce / vendors Restrict access / dual authentication Assess Cybersecurity Insurance coverage

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What Should the Public Sector do?

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Reduce attacker chance of success and increase risk of detection

• Prevention, Policy, Security, Monitoring, and Response • Layered approach to security (endpoint, perimeter, network,

application, data) • Multi-year strategic plan of investment based on risk • Penetration testing

Prepare for the unexpected (annual tabletops) • Crisis Management Plan • Continuity of Operations Plans • Cyber Security Plans • Incorporate additional skepticism thinking

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What Should the Public Sector do?

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Skepticism is the process of applying reason and critical thinking to determine validity. It's the process of finding a supported conclusion, not the justification of a preconceived conclusion.

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Thank You!